How did Amit Patel loot over $22,000,000 from the Jaguars? Latest report on former employee reveals stunning details

Documents filed in a United States District Court in Jacksonville, Florida, revealed that former Jacksonville Jaguars employee Amit Patel stole $22 million. He exploited the team’s virtual credit card system for team-related expenses.

Despite being a mid-level employee, Patel pulled off the heist from 2019 to 2023. How did he do it? An article by The Athletic’s Katie Strang and Kalyn Kahler revealed the loopholes that allowed Patel’s alleged criminal activity to thrive undetected.

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Amit Patel exploited loopholes in the Jaguars’ financial dealings

The Jacksonville Jaguars commissioned law and accounting firms to conduct independent reviews regarding Amit Patel’s actions. They discovered that the former team’s finance department employee acted alone. Meanwhile, those who worked with him shared that he wasn’t extravagant at work, save for his Tesla vehicle.

However, Strang and Kahler pointed out three red flags that gave Patel free rein to steal around $5.5 million annually. First, the Jaguars’ finance department was understaffed. His supervisor, the team’s financial planning and analysis director, was transferred to another department.

Unfortunately, that director had no replacement, losing a vital gateway that would have checked Patel’s tracks. Having fewer employees meant that Patel and his colleagues were responsible for preparing monthly financial statements while also being the auditor.

Second, the Jaguars’ transition to a virtual credit card system made him the go-to person for anyone who had questions about encoding transactions and creating user accounts. Understaffing is also affected by this part of Patel’s role because the accounting employee who used to check Patel’s sheets left.

With another gateway gone, Patel had unprecedented power over the team’s VCC. Since he classified the VCC transactions in the team’s ledger, he identified recurring expenses like hotel, airfare, and catering fees. He duplicated those amounts with bogus transactions that would make sense. Hence, the balance sheet and the alleged expenses look the same at first glance.

Third, auditing the Jaguars’ financial sheets might not have been as thorough as needed. A former NFL chief operating officer said the team should have detected the fraudulent charges because it would have inflated the annual budget.

The nature of the auditing done is one way Amit Patel’s fraudulent activity went undetected. The auditors might have pulled matched samples, making the transactions seem legitimate. However, a former finance employee for an NFC team argued that the Jaguars might not have reviewed the spreadsheet integration file Patel submitted.

Finally, the lack of internal audit allowed Patel to continue for years. Another former NFL COO said that an audit of that nature would have prevented him from allegedly stealing more. It’s one of three audits an NFL team typically undergoes. The others are a league-mandated audit for salary cap compliance and a bank-initiated audit if the team borrowed money.

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How did Amit Patel spend the money he allegedly stole from the Jaguars?

According to the court documents, he used the money he allegedly got through the Jaguars’ VCC program to buy a Tesla Model 3 and a Nissan pick-up. Amit Patel also bought a condominium in Ponte Vedra Beach and went on luxurious travels with private jets and private rental residences.

He also purchased luxury wristwatches and bought cryptocurrency. Patel also used a massive portion of the $22 million in online betting and daily fantasy sports. Worst yet, he knew he was doing something wrong by having a criminal defense lawyer on retainer.

He is expected to plead guilty to wire fraud charges and illegal monetary transactions. Meanwhile, the Jaguars have increased their finance department by six employees since firing Patel last February. Among those positions are a vice president and a senior manager for accounting.